UAE Food Bank lends new meaning to Year of Giving

The UAE Food Bank is an ambitious project that will ensure no child or adult goes to bed on a empty stomach.

There are about 795 million people in the world who do not have enough food to lead a ''healthy, active'' life. The World Food Program says one in nine people on earth go hungry every day. A majority of these people live in developing countries where 12 per cent of the population is undernourished. If these figures don't shock us, here's more. The UN estimates that 3.1 million children under five years of age die every year from lack of proper nutrition. Again, most of them are in the developing, or poorer countries of Asia and Africa where income and social inequalities persist, where strife is rife and political unheavals are part of daily life. Countries in the Middle East like Syria, Iraq and Yemen, swept by war, also suffer from acute food shortages. In Yemen alone, 14.4 million of the population are starving. Rebel Houthis even target humanitarian aid convoys. In Syria, President Bashar Al Assad's forces used hunger as a tool to flush out militants and rebels.
How can the UAE help in such bleak conditions, where food is scarce, where hope is lost for people caught in the crossfire of war, or famine? Food security may be a long way off for these countries, but His Highness Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE  and Ruler of Dubai, is keen to ease their suffering through a food bank he is seeking to establish in the region and across the world with private and public sector support.  What better way than food to reach out and touch lives? The UAE Food Bank is an ambitious project that will ensure no child or adult goes to bed on a empty stomach. It is also a path-breaking initiative against wastage. Surplus fresh and canned food will be distributed to those who cannot afford it. Food banks are common in the West, but this is a praise-worthy and novel idea for the region. The UAE is known for its prosperity and potential. Now's the time to cut back - on excess food - and share it with those in need. It lends new meaning to the Year of Giving.